Honesty, Sincerity
by Amanda M. Daugherty
Summary: Harm and Mac sit down and discuss what they both want out of their relationship.


Title: Honesty, Sincerity   
  
Author: Amanda M. Daugherty  
  
E-mail: country_Girl_2003@yahoo.com  
  
Rating: PG  
  
Classification: (Harm/Mac) Mac's POV  
  
Spoilers: NONE  
  
Summary: Harm and Mac sit down and discuss what they want from each other.   
  
Disclaimers: Don't own JAG.  
  
Author's Notes: I know this story is going to raise a lot of questions and I plan to write another story to go along with this timeline that will explain everything. I just have to get Not A Day Goes By finished first. Oh and it's inspired by a country song called "Honesty" Sorry but I don't know the singer, but I don't own it.   
  
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Harlett Cafe  
  
Georgetown  
  
Of course he's late again. That seems to be a permanent trait of his just like those ice blue eyes and cocky flyboy grin. I don't know why I expected him to be on time. Living with him for seven years, I should know better. Glancing at my watch, the same watch he bought me two years ago for Christmas, I notice he's fifteen minutes late. The waitress has already filled my tea twice and keeps watching me like something is wrong. Doesn't she know I'm just waiting for someone.   
  
Hearing the doorbell jingle I can't help but glancing up and there he stands. I notice that the waitress from before is keeping a close eye on him as he makes his way toward me still dressed in his dark blue suit. He must have came straight from his meeting. After he sits down she can't help, but make her way over here to him to take his order. He orders a coffee, black. That's something I should have had waiting for him here. In all the years I've known him he's never changed the way he's drank his coffee. In fact he's never even tried drinking it any other way. It's scary how well you can know another person.   
  
"Sorry I'm late. My meeting lasted longer than I expected." He explains.   
  
"It's okay. I've come to expect it from you." My tone isn't bitter, but more of me realizing chances lost.   
  
"So was your day okay?" He asks me trying to make conversation. Like talking about how my day was is going to make this conversation any better.   
  
"It was okay. Bud's becoming one hell of a lawyer." I try to smile. It's been six months since he moved out of our home and we both finally decided that enough was enough.   
  
"Look Sarah, this isn't going to get any easier so let's just get it over with. Write down everything that you want and then we'll let the lawyers settle everything else.   
  
"Okay. What about Sam?" Sam was our five year old little boy. He's our pride and joy.   
  
"I want you to know that I'm moving back to San Diego. My life is back there. My mom and Dad, Jason and Michael are there, not to mention crystler headquarters. Just so you know I won't fight for custody. A boy's place is with his mother, but I still want to be a part of his life."  
  
"How about you can get him whenever you're in Washington, permitting that you let me know ahead of time, we'll alternate holidays, and you can have him for three weeks during the summer after school's let out. Of course we'll have to work around Chelly and when you have Jason and Michael."  
  
"Sounds good to me." I notice him look around everywhere, but at me. That's something I love, but hate about him all at the same time. Finally his gaze comes to rest on me and he asks the question that we both have been dreading. "How did we let it get this far?"  
  
"I guess we were due." That's all I could think of. Here he is trying to ask me where our marriage went wrong and all I can say is that I think we were due. What kind of response is that?   
  
"What's that supposed to mean?" He could always read my thoughts.   
  
"I guess that we loved so carelessly that it was bound to catch up to us."  
  
"You're saying that we weren't careful enough with our love."  
  
"Harm, love is a fragile thing and we just didn't hang on tight enough to it." My heart screams for me to tell him that I still love him, but my head is telling me that he hurt me once and he'll do it again. "Got a pen on you?"   
  
"Yeah." He reaches into his breast pocket and pulls out his pen that Sam gave him a last year for Father's Day. In elegant script across the body it has Harmon Rabb Jr. written it and below it was World's Greatest Dad. Harm carries it with him everyday to the office and uses it for everything. I wonder if it'll be the pen he signs our divorce papers with.   
  
I simply reach for a napkin that was placed beside him and begin to write.   
  
"What are you doing?" I glance up briefly to see that look of confusion he often gets.   
  
"You told me to write down what I wanted, so I'm doing it."  
  
I see fear flash across his face. He's probably thinking about the new house we had built when we learned that our baby girl was coming, or perhaps his beloved corvette or the Navigator he bought me for our anniversary last year. Then I realize that the house and car probably isn't what he's thinking about. He's thinking about that fortune that he's going to get once his dad dies and that company that will be his. He wonders how much of it I want. Damn him!  
  
I slowly finish writing all that I want and slide the napkin over to him. He looks up at me and then down at his hands where he's fingering the napkin that will decide our future. I have to fight the tears that want to fall down my cheeks, but no matter what I will not let him see my tears.   
  
I watch as he reads the words I had written only minutes before.   
  
"Honesty, sincerity, kisses every morning, and I love yous at night." He reads off my list, but it doesn't turn over to see the very last thing I've written and I now regret writing it, because what if this doesn't turn out like I hoped it would. "What do you want me to be honest about?"  
  
"Kelly." Is the only thing I say. He knows what I'm talking about. Three months before he moved out I came home late one night from work and found him and his secretary on the couch. They weren't doing anything just then, but she was leaning up against him and they both had glasses of wine. Something I know he bought special for them because we don't keep any wine in the house since I don't drink. I don't know what happened that night or what would have happened if I hadn't come home early. I just know that I walked in on my husband drinking with his secretary, his blond secretary, and our five year old son asleep upstairs in his room.  
  
"Kelly? I told you about her."   
  
"Not everything. You said nothing happened, but I want to know everything that did happen and what would have happened if I hadn't come home when I did." I know I'm just begging for heartache, but I need this.   
  
"The truth is that I was hurting when our baby girl died. You grieve on the outside, but I'm not like that. I have to hold it all in. I felt I had to hold it in so I could be strong for you. Anyway, Kelly was a friend to me. You don't know how many times she would walk into my office and find me brushing tears away from my eyes. It tore me up when they said that Mel wouldn't make it. I was going to be the one that she came to when you wouldn't let her do something. I was going to be the one at the office to show the video tape of her dance recital and the one to tell her that she couldn't date until she was 25. She was going to be the one who would always love me no matter how stupid I acted or what mistakes I made. She was going to be my little girl. Kelly offered me a shoulder to cry on without judging me. The night you came home and found us on the couch was the day that I finally was able to put her baby picture up in my office without crying everytime I saw it. She said it was a break through and we should celebrate. Kelly bought the bottle of wine and we were going to go back to our house where I thought you'd be. I was going to tell you everything about how I felt about Mel. Kelly was going to help me, but we got there and you weren't. I offered for Kelly to come in and wait. It was over an hour of waiting when I suggested we open the wine since you didn't drink anyway. We were looking at the family photo album when you came in. Kelly had seen the bathtub picture of me that Mom gave you and I was trying to get it away from her. That's what you walked in on." I can't believe it, but I believe him. Maybe it's that look in his eyes.   
  
"What would have happened?"  
  
"If you hadn't come home in the next hour. Kelly was going to leave and we were going to do it another night. I swear to you Sarah. Nothing would have happened. I love you too much." He paused for a second. "Think about this. In all the time we've been together have I ever even once just looked at another woman in lust or love?"  
  
"No." I mutter weakly.  
  
"What about sincerity?"  
  
"I want you to be sincere when I talk about my feelings. Don't make jokes."  
  
"Making jokes is my way of dealing with what happens in my life, but if you want me to stop I will. If you want kisses every morning and I love yous at night. You've got it. All you've got to do is take me back."  
  
"There's one more thing that I want that you haven't agreed to." I watch as he turns the napkin over and reads the last thing I've written on the back.   
  
A smile spreads across his face when he reads it. He stuffs the napkin in his pocket, places a couple bills on the table, grabs my hand and we make our way out of the tiny cafe.   
  
I won't say that it's been easy these last few months since Harm moved back in with Sam and me. All three of us have been adjusting, but we're going to make it. I will almost guarantee that it won't be happily ever after. We've got too much history for that, but we've both agreed that love is too fragile and we've got to hang on tight to it. But just in case we ever forget sitting above our dresser in a frame is that napkin that I wrote on a few months ago everything I wanted from him and on the back was the last thing I wanted. In simple black letters I had written 'you'.  
  
THE END!!!!!!!!!!  
  
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